The present invention relates to an apparatus for separating two rolls of sheet material connected end-to-end, and in particular to an improved apparatus for quickly and conveniently separating two rolls of paper connected end-to-end.
In the manufacture of paper, a wide web of paper is usually wound onto a core to form a roll which is relatively long. The long roll of paper is then slit into shorter rolls of appropriate size, and to that end the paper is unwound from the long roll, passed through a slitter and the resulting short sections are then wound onto a plurality of shorter cores arranged side by side on a mandrel. Ideally, the rolls of paper on the short cores are separated one from the other. However, it sometimes happens that adjacent short rolls end up being interconnected end-to-end, for example because adjacent slit edges oscillate back and forth and become interlaced. Should adjacent short rolls of paper be joined, they must be separated before and so that the paper can be removed from the core for recycling, since even two short rolls are of unmanageable size and weight to accommodate convenient removal of the paper from the cores when the rolls are joined.
Various techniques heretofore used to separate two connected short rolls of paper include cutting the rolls apart with a two-man hand saw, picking up the rolls with a fork lift truck and dropping them on a pipe, such that the rolls strike the pipe along their juncture, and/or using a sledge hammer to manually pound wedges into the juncture between the rolls. All of these techniques have been found to be time intensive, inconvenient and usually require at least two people to implement.